Looking Back & Looking Forward
Jan. 6th, 2018 20:34![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousetrapplingAlternative title was "A Year in Numbers" ... but not all of this is numbers. I do start with numbers tho. It's an odd sort of review of 2017, looking at things I did rather than things that happened - mostly coz the year was bookended by depressing events (it began with my mother dying of dementia in a care home, and ended with my cat terminally ill with cancer and having a somewhat problematic recovery from the operation that we'd hoped would save his life but didn't (he has months left, but there is an end point in view if that makes sense)).
I track time spent, as a side-effect of the planning app I use (Goalist) and put the numbers into a spreadsheet. So below are some different ways of looking at what I did over the last year (for the single letter codes: H = housework, M = health, the others should be obvious; times are in hours; the first graph graphs rolling 7-day totals so it looks a bit weird, as when I made the graph I used a stat I was already tracking rather than faff with the spreadsheet). Of note: some things overlap (I do embroidery mostly in front of the TV, I listen to podcasts while I do housework), some things just don't get tracked (travel in vehicles, reading fiction), some things aren't particularly accurate. But it's indicative even if not precise. And it's pretty much where I'd like it to be - although I do keep looking at the "mental health" section and thinking I maybe spend too much time planning & reviewing/journalling which is what a lot of that is but a) it's useful and b) I enjoy it, so why not just keep on with it?
Perhaps more interestingly for the world outside my head, I also track what I read:
Shakespeare: Staging the World, Jonathan Bate & Dora Thornton, 9
The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, ed James C. S. Lin, 10
Getting Things Done, David Allen, 3
Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461, Gerald Harriss, 48
4 non-fiction books, 3 that I own and one library book (the GTD one). The numbers are hours reading, and I haven't finished Shaping the Nation yet.
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, 3
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey, 8
Empire Games, Charles Stross, 4
Kushiel's Chosen, Jacqueline Carey, 6
Kushiel's Avatar, Jacqueline Carey, 7
The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll, 7
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee, 5
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner, 3
Downbelow Station, C. J. Cherryh, 6
Merchanter's Luck, C. J. Cherryh, 2
Rimrunners, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Heavy Time, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Hellburner, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh, 12
Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee, 5
Regenesis, C. J. Cherryh, 7
Tripoint, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Nightmare Stacks, Charles Stross, 6
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries), Martha Wells, 1
Valour's Choice, Tanya Huff, 4
Finity's End, C. J. Cherryh, 5
Foreigner, C. J. Cherryh, 5
Girl Reading, Katie Ward, 4
Reamde, Neal Stephenson, 10
The Godfather, Mario Puzio, 5
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, 5
The Better Part of Valour, Tanya Huff, 3
The Heart of Valour, Tanya Huff, 5
Provenance, Ann Leckie, 4
Patriot Games, Tom Clancy, 7
The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Tom Clancy, 5
Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy, 7
Without Remorse, Tom Clancy, 7
Debt of Honour, Tom Clancy, 6
Valour's Trial, Tanya Huff, 6
The Truth of Valour, Tanya Huff, 5
The Delirium Brief, Charles Stross, 6
37 fiction books, of which 15 were e-books and 16 were re-reads. I haven't finished Debt of Honour yet.
Overall I started 40 books (plus 1 started in 2016) and finished 39, so not bad and I think more than in 2016 (but I wasn't tracking in the same way then so can't check). For a total of 258 hours reading, of which almost 1/5 has been reading Shaping the Nation (it's rather dense!).
And I track TV watched, too. 260 programmes watched, 375 recorded. We have a bit of a problem there - there's too much that looks interesting every week :/ Most is documentaries, and of the fiction the only thing I watched was Doctor Who (the spreadsheet is actually an index to the PVR(s) which indicates what we're in the middle of watching so it lists stuff recorded solely for J too).
1066: A Year to Conquer England
Alan Johnson: The Post Office and Me
American Epic (Arena)
An Art Lovers' Guide
Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting
Army: Behind the New Frontlines
Art of France
A-Z of World Music
BBC Introducing: 10 Years of Finding the Next Big Thing
Beautiful Equations
Best Album 2017: Meet the Mercury Prize Shortlist
Blue Planet II
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
Bowie - The Last Five Years
Britain at War: Imperial War Museum at 100
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
Britain's Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story
British Art at War: Bomberg, Sickert and Nash
Charlie Brooker's 2016 Wipe
Colombia with Simon Reeve
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race
Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture
Dangerous Borders: A Journey across India & Pakistan
Digging for Britain
Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time
Doctor Who
Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence
Elizabeth I's Secret Agents
EMI: The Inside Story
England's Reformation: Three Books That Changed a Nation
From Russia to Iran: Crossing Wild Frontiers
Geri's 1990s: My Drive To Freedom
Glam Rock at the BBC
Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturn
Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives
Great American Rock Anthems: Turn it up to 11
Harry Potter: A History of Magic
Hokusai: Old Man Crazy to Paint
Horizon: 40 Years on the Moon
How to Be a World Music Star: Buena Vista, Bhundu Boys and Beyond
How to Be a Surrealist with Philippa Perry
How to Make a Number One Record
Hyper Evolution: Rise of the Robots
Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails
In Search of Arcadia
Indie Classics at the BBC
Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility
Italy's Invisible Cities
Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors
Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands
Kipling's Indian Adventure
Later with Jools Holland
Letters from Baghdad
Marc Bolan: Cosmic Dancer
Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman
Meet the Lords
Mercury Music Prize: Album of the Year Live
Metalworks!
Mexico: Earth's Festival of Life
Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson
Morocco To Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure
My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947
Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business
Oceans
On Camera: Photographers at the BBC
Pedalling Dreams: The Raleigh Story
Planet Earth II
Planet Oil: The Treasure That Conquered the World
Play it Loud: The Story of the Marshall Amp
Primal Scream: Screamadelica
Prog at the BBC
Reginald D Hunter's Songs of the South
Rick Stein's Long Weekends
Rock 'n' Roll America
Rock N Roll Guns for Hire: The Story of the Sideman
Rubble Kings
Russia with Simon Reeve
Science and Islam
Scotland and the Klan
Scotland's Treasures
Secrets Of Silicon Valley
Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs
Seven Days in Summer: Countdown to Partition
Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau
Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall
Sherlock
Sicily: The Wonder of the Mediterranean
Six Wives with Lucy Worsley
Smile! The Nation's Family Album
Sound of Song
Soup Cans & Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World
Storm Troupers: The Fight to Forecast the Weather
Sword, Musket & Machine Gun: Britain's Armed History
The 21st Century Race For Space
The Art of Australia
The Art of Japanese Life
The Century That Wrote Itself
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey
The Genius of Funk
The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution
The Hidden Art of Islam
The Joy of Logic
The Joy of Stats
The Killer Wave of 1607
The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia
The Man Who Shot Tutankhamun
The Medici: Makers of Modern Art
The Nazis: A Warning from History
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture
The Search for a New Earth
The Secrets of China's Forbidden City (Channel 4)
The Story of Maths
The Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World
The Sweet Makers
The Toys That Made Christmas
The World's Most Expensive Stolen Paintings
This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting
Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?
Travel Man: 48 Hours in Vienna
Turkey with Simon Reeve
Tutankhamun
U2 at the BBC
Unfinished: The Making of Massive Attack
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
Venus Uncovered: Ancient Goddess of Love
Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream
What Ever Happened to Rock 'n' Roll?
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row
World's Busiest Cities
Yorkshire Wolds Way
Also a small handful of unfinished series:
Ancient Mysteries (Channel 5)
Digging for Britain: Series 6
EIGHT DAYS THAT MADE ROME
Rick Stein's Road To Mexico
Sound Waves: The Symphony of Physics
I also watched two films:
Star Wars The Last Jedi
The Godfather
The big project for 2017 was my Photo a Day one, which I'm pleased to've kept up all the way through - I missed 6 photos so I've done them in 2018. I've just uploaded them all to flickr, and I plan to write up a little post about them later picking out some of my favourites.
Another thing I was specifically trying to do over 2017 was to take up more space in the world coz I felt like I was pulling back from actually sharing anything I was doing with anyone ... and well, you're reading this DW post so that's an improvement? Or at least, I posted it even if no-one reads it ;) I also started sharing my photos from the Photo a Day project and doing media consumption round ups. So I feel I'm a bit more visible than I was last year - tho I do I have to figure out something to do now there won't be photos to share. I work better with systems/routines rather than "oh I'll just post stuff when I feel like it" as that tends to devolve into the brain weasels telling me no-one cares about what I do so there's no point.
I did figure out how to replace the on-going creative aspect of the Photo a Day project - I picked back up embroidery late on in the year coz I figured out how to multi-task (stitch in front of the TV). So between that & podcasts while I do housework I should have a chance to create & learn something almost every day.
What about 2018? Well, first up it's The Year of the Marathon (barring disaster, injury, etc). Paradoxically this is actually because I want to scale back the running to what it was originally supposed to be (3 runs a week, most of them under an hour). But having decided that some time around March last year I realised I had some things I wanted to achieve while I was still putting a lot of time into training - one was a sub-30 minute parkrun (at Chantry park, on the harder course) which I did back in July 2017, and the other was to run a marathon. So I've entered Brighton Marathon which is on April 15th, and I've just finished week 4 of an 18 week training plan. A bit intimidating, but I think I'm capable of it.
That is, obviously, going to use up a large chunk of time & mental energy (and physical energy of course) and I've not really got firm goals for afterwards. I do have an idea for a writing/blog project that I will start working on once I've got more time back - tho it won't see the light of day for 6 months to a year after I start working on it, it's not planned to be time sensitive so I want to write a bunch of articles and get properly ahead of myself before publishing things. I'm being vague on purpose coz once I start work on it I may decide I don't like it after all so I don't want to feel I've committed to it.
Another less big-project thing is that I'd like to catch up with some of the back log of photo processing I've still not really touched over the last year (including 2 holidays!!). And start to paint geometric designs again.
I have a vague feeling I'm not covering everything I wanted to in this post, but it's gotten quite long enough I think so I'll just wrap it up here :)
Time spent
I track time spent, as a side-effect of the planning app I use (Goalist) and put the numbers into a spreadsheet. So below are some different ways of looking at what I did over the last year (for the single letter codes: H = housework, M = health, the others should be obvious; times are in hours; the first graph graphs rolling 7-day totals so it looks a bit weird, as when I made the graph I used a stat I was already tracking rather than faff with the spreadsheet). Of note: some things overlap (I do embroidery mostly in front of the TV, I listen to podcasts while I do housework), some things just don't get tracked (travel in vehicles, reading fiction), some things aren't particularly accurate. But it's indicative even if not precise. And it's pretty much where I'd like it to be - although I do keep looking at the "mental health" section and thinking I maybe spend too much time planning & reviewing/journalling which is what a lot of that is but a) it's useful and b) I enjoy it, so why not just keep on with it?
Books
Perhaps more interestingly for the world outside my head, I also track what I read:
Shakespeare: Staging the World, Jonathan Bate & Dora Thornton, 9
The Search for Immortality: Tomb Treasures of Han China, ed James C. S. Lin, 10
Getting Things Done, David Allen, 3
Shaping the Nation: England 1360-1461, Gerald Harriss, 48
4 non-fiction books, 3 that I own and one library book (the GTD one). The numbers are hours reading, and I haven't finished Shaping the Nation yet.
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, 3
Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey, 8
Empire Games, Charles Stross, 4
Kushiel's Chosen, Jacqueline Carey, 6
Kushiel's Avatar, Jacqueline Carey, 7
The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll, 7
Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee, 5
Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner, 3
Downbelow Station, C. J. Cherryh, 6
Merchanter's Luck, C. J. Cherryh, 2
Rimrunners, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Heavy Time, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Hellburner, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh, 12
Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee, 5
Regenesis, C. J. Cherryh, 7
Tripoint, C. J. Cherryh, 3
Nightmare Stacks, Charles Stross, 6
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries), Martha Wells, 1
Valour's Choice, Tanya Huff, 4
Finity's End, C. J. Cherryh, 5
Foreigner, C. J. Cherryh, 5
Girl Reading, Katie Ward, 4
Reamde, Neal Stephenson, 10
The Godfather, Mario Puzio, 5
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, 5
The Better Part of Valour, Tanya Huff, 3
The Heart of Valour, Tanya Huff, 5
Provenance, Ann Leckie, 4
Patriot Games, Tom Clancy, 7
The Cardinal of the Kremlin, Tom Clancy, 5
Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy, 7
Without Remorse, Tom Clancy, 7
Debt of Honour, Tom Clancy, 6
Valour's Trial, Tanya Huff, 6
The Truth of Valour, Tanya Huff, 5
The Delirium Brief, Charles Stross, 6
37 fiction books, of which 15 were e-books and 16 were re-reads. I haven't finished Debt of Honour yet.
Overall I started 40 books (plus 1 started in 2016) and finished 39, so not bad and I think more than in 2016 (but I wasn't tracking in the same way then so can't check). For a total of 258 hours reading, of which almost 1/5 has been reading Shaping the Nation (it's rather dense!).
TV
And I track TV watched, too. 260 programmes watched, 375 recorded. We have a bit of a problem there - there's too much that looks interesting every week :/ Most is documentaries, and of the fiction the only thing I watched was Doctor Who (the spreadsheet is actually an index to the PVR(s) which indicates what we're in the middle of watching so it lists stuff recorded solely for J too).
1066: A Year to Conquer England
Alan Johnson: The Post Office and Me
American Epic (Arena)
An Art Lovers' Guide
Apples, Pears and Paint: How to Make a Still Life Painting
Army: Behind the New Frontlines
Art of France
A-Z of World Music
BBC Introducing: 10 Years of Finding the Next Big Thing
Beautiful Equations
Best Album 2017: Meet the Mercury Prize Shortlist
Blue Planet II
Bob Dylan: No Direction Home
Bowie - The Last Five Years
Britain at War: Imperial War Museum at 100
Britain's Ancient Capital: Secrets of Orkney
Britain's Nuclear Bomb: The Inside Story
British Art at War: Bomberg, Sickert and Nash
Charlie Brooker's 2016 Wipe
Colombia with Simon Reeve
Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race
Dan Cruickshank's Adventures in Architecture
Dangerous Borders: A Journey across India & Pakistan
Digging for Britain
Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio
Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time
Doctor Who
Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence
Elizabeth I's Secret Agents
EMI: The Inside Story
England's Reformation: Three Books That Changed a Nation
From Russia to Iran: Crossing Wild Frontiers
Geri's 1990s: My Drive To Freedom
Glam Rock at the BBC
Goodbye Cassini - Hello Saturn
Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives
Great American Rock Anthems: Turn it up to 11
Harry Potter: A History of Magic
Hokusai: Old Man Crazy to Paint
Horizon: 40 Years on the Moon
How to Be a World Music Star: Buena Vista, Bhundu Boys and Beyond
How to Be a Surrealist with Philippa Perry
How to Make a Number One Record
Hyper Evolution: Rise of the Robots
Ian Hislop Goes off the Rails
In Search of Arcadia
Indie Classics at the BBC
Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility
Italy's Invisible Cities
Jane Austen: Behind Closed Doors
Japan: Earth's Enchanted Islands
Kipling's Indian Adventure
Later with Jools Holland
Letters from Baghdad
Marc Bolan: Cosmic Dancer
Mary Magdalene: Art's Scarlet Woman
Meet the Lords
Mercury Music Prize: Album of the Year Live
Metalworks!
Mexico: Earth's Festival of Life
Moominland Tales: The Life of Tove Jansson
Morocco To Timbuktu: An Arabian Adventure
My Family, Partition and Me: India 1947
Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business
Oceans
On Camera: Photographers at the BBC
Pedalling Dreams: The Raleigh Story
Planet Earth II
Planet Oil: The Treasure That Conquered the World
Play it Loud: The Story of the Marshall Amp
Primal Scream: Screamadelica
Prog at the BBC
Reginald D Hunter's Songs of the South
Rick Stein's Long Weekends
Rock 'n' Roll America
Rock N Roll Guns for Hire: The Story of the Sideman
Rubble Kings
Russia with Simon Reeve
Science and Islam
Scotland and the Klan
Scotland's Treasures
Secrets Of Silicon Valley
Servants: The True Story of Life Below Stairs
Seven Days in Summer: Countdown to Partition
Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau
Sgt Pepper's Musical Revolution with Howard Goodall
Sherlock
Sicily: The Wonder of the Mediterranean
Six Wives with Lucy Worsley
Smile! The Nation's Family Album
Sound of Song
Soup Cans & Superstars: How Pop Art Changed the World
Storm Troupers: The Fight to Forecast the Weather
Sword, Musket & Machine Gun: Britain's Armed History
The 21st Century Race For Space
The Art of Australia
The Art of Japanese Life
The Century That Wrote Itself
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
The Farthest: Voyager's Interstellar Journey
The Genius of Funk
The Genius of Turner: Painting the Industrial Revolution
The Hidden Art of Islam
The Joy of Logic
The Joy of Stats
The Killer Wave of 1607
The Legacy of Lawrence of Arabia
The Man Who Shot Tutankhamun
The Medici: Makers of Modern Art
The Nazis: A Warning from History
The Richard Dimbleby Lecture
The Search for a New Earth
The Secrets of China's Forbidden City (Channel 4)
The Story of Maths
The Summer of Love: How Hippies Changed the World
The Sweet Makers
The Toys That Made Christmas
The World's Most Expensive Stolen Paintings
This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting
Trump: The Kremlin Candidate?
Travel Man: 48 Hours in Vienna
Turkey with Simon Reeve
Tutankhamun
U2 at the BBC
Unfinished: The Making of Massive Attack
Utopia: In Search of the Dream
Venus Uncovered: Ancient Goddess of Love
Vienna: Empire, Dynasty and Dream
What Ever Happened to Rock 'n' Roll?
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row
World's Busiest Cities
Yorkshire Wolds Way
Also a small handful of unfinished series:
Ancient Mysteries (Channel 5)
Digging for Britain: Series 6
EIGHT DAYS THAT MADE ROME
Rick Stein's Road To Mexico
Sound Waves: The Symphony of Physics
I also watched two films:
Star Wars The Last Jedi
The Godfather
Less numbers, more chat
The big project for 2017 was my Photo a Day one, which I'm pleased to've kept up all the way through - I missed 6 photos so I've done them in 2018. I've just uploaded them all to flickr, and I plan to write up a little post about them later picking out some of my favourites.
Another thing I was specifically trying to do over 2017 was to take up more space in the world coz I felt like I was pulling back from actually sharing anything I was doing with anyone ... and well, you're reading this DW post so that's an improvement? Or at least, I posted it even if no-one reads it ;) I also started sharing my photos from the Photo a Day project and doing media consumption round ups. So I feel I'm a bit more visible than I was last year - tho I do I have to figure out something to do now there won't be photos to share. I work better with systems/routines rather than "oh I'll just post stuff when I feel like it" as that tends to devolve into the brain weasels telling me no-one cares about what I do so there's no point.
I did figure out how to replace the on-going creative aspect of the Photo a Day project - I picked back up embroidery late on in the year coz I figured out how to multi-task (stitch in front of the TV). So between that & podcasts while I do housework I should have a chance to create & learn something almost every day.
Looking Forward
What about 2018? Well, first up it's The Year of the Marathon (barring disaster, injury, etc). Paradoxically this is actually because I want to scale back the running to what it was originally supposed to be (3 runs a week, most of them under an hour). But having decided that some time around March last year I realised I had some things I wanted to achieve while I was still putting a lot of time into training - one was a sub-30 minute parkrun (at Chantry park, on the harder course) which I did back in July 2017, and the other was to run a marathon. So I've entered Brighton Marathon which is on April 15th, and I've just finished week 4 of an 18 week training plan. A bit intimidating, but I think I'm capable of it.
That is, obviously, going to use up a large chunk of time & mental energy (and physical energy of course) and I've not really got firm goals for afterwards. I do have an idea for a writing/blog project that I will start working on once I've got more time back - tho it won't see the light of day for 6 months to a year after I start working on it, it's not planned to be time sensitive so I want to write a bunch of articles and get properly ahead of myself before publishing things. I'm being vague on purpose coz once I start work on it I may decide I don't like it after all so I don't want to feel I've committed to it.
Another less big-project thing is that I'd like to catch up with some of the back log of photo processing I've still not really touched over the last year (including 2 holidays!!). And start to paint geometric designs again.
I have a vague feeling I'm not covering everything I wanted to in this post, but it's gotten quite long enough I think so I'll just wrap it up here :)
no subject
Date: 2018-01-10 02:09 (UTC)And I hadn't realized your mom died; my condolences on your loss.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-10 13:20 (UTC)